Rush Limbaugh gives constitutional convention idea big boost

First Mark Levin, now Rush Limbaugh. Slowly but surely, big names in conservative circles are adding their names to a growing list of unhappy tea party and patriotic types who’ve been calling for a dramatic political move — a constitutional convention to rein in federal overreach.

A convention can be convened at the request of two-thirds of the states, as a means of proposing amendments to the Constitution.

Mr. Limbaugh weighed in on the notion — which has been pressed by radio giant Mr. Levin as a surefire means of scaling back the feds for months — during one of his recent broadcasts, giving a seeming thumbs-up to what he described as a viable option to impeachment.

“So there is impeachment to deal with a lawless president, a lawless executive,” Mr. Limbaugh said, The Hill reported. “But there is another way, and it is right in the Constitution. It’s right there in Article V of the Constitution. … [and] allows for the states to establish a constitutional convention for the purposes of dealing with circumstances such as we are experiencing today. If the Congress will not impeach, it’s right in Article V: The states have the power, if they want to do it.”

The fear of using the power is that it’s “constitutional tinkering,” said Steven Hayward, a Ronald Reagan Distinguished Visiting Professor at Pepperdine University’s Graduate School of Public Policy, in a recent Forbes article.

“Others worry about a ’runaway convention,’ in which the delegates produce a number of other changes to the Constitution, perhaps changing the First Amendment to allow for greater federal control of political speech,” Mr. Hayward went on.

But at least one voice that’s been calling for the convention for months — Citizens for Self Governance President Mark Meckler — characterized the idea as a no-brainer in terms of returning the power of government to the people.

“This is the most important thing [about the convention]: Literally, only the people can do this. The people have to take control,” said Mr. Meckler, in a previous interview with Glenn Beck, posted on GlennBeck.com. “You can absolutely get involved. You have to get involved. Only you are going to fix the country. The politicians in D.C. are never going to do it.”

Mr. Meckler also explained that the whole Founding Father reason for Article V was to address instances “where the federal government had become tyrannical [and] needed to be retrained by the people,” he said, in the GlennBeck.com interview.

So far, more than three dozen states have joined in the call for the convention.